unrelenting_rhapsody | You know, it's probably the carbon monoxide levels....

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You know, it's probably the carbon monoxide levels....

Who: Dera and Yama
When: Some time after the damn company softball game.
What: Well, and then there were Thunderbirds.

Dera leaned his head back against the overly warm metal and giggled tiredly. Yes, he giggled. It all seemed so damn stupid now. It had been a normal day after all. Yama had been stretched out in the break room after the morning workouts, and he'd been reading a book, his legs draped over his partners...granted, it was a safer book than normal, but no point in taking chances. So, yeah, a normal afternoon mingling with the other agents before getting called off to the office.

It seemed a good week for monster migration. Everyone was getting pulled, their personal assignment? Get their asses to California and tag the first pair of Thunderbirds anyone had seen in decades. Tag. Like they were fucking Bald Eagles or something.

Sure, they were endangered and sure they were awesome as fuck and all that? But tagging. For fucks sake! Their lead had suggested drugging the cattle being stolen so the birds would sleep. Simple plan. Yeah.

Except the fucking BIRDS HADN'T EATEN THE DAMN COWS. One of the pair had scooped up unripe burger and they'd flown off, they were halfway along the flight trail in tailing the pair when the damn things came back. He'd been the one to reach out and grip Yama's wrist; they couldn't kill the birds...plus a sword would be a VERY BAD IDEA with LIGHTNING BIRDS. It wasn't exactly magic, his partner's powers might not cancel out a natural ability like energy conduction.

FUCK FUCK FUCK "Kiss the dirt!" DOWN DOWN DOWN!

The birds were grabbing more cows.

THE FUCK WOULD THEY NEED MORE COWS FOR?

In hindsight he should have figured that one out; when they ran out of cows to snag they went after anything that even moved. Or after anything that had a bioeletric impulse system. He was pretty sure they sensed nerve conduction. And it kinda fucking hurt when they got picked up by giant birds and yanked upward fast enough to force a nosebleed and then blacking out.

Why did normally private creatures migrate across country borders?

Nesting.

FUCKING NESTING.

The thunderbirds were set up in the local electric company; the factory burned coal and coke if the scrubbers and smoke stacks were any indication. And more importantly there was always a dim layer of smog before the tops of the exhaust vents were visible. The birds were practically invisible in their chosen heights. They had pulled the top scrubber out of one stack and were stuffing cows (and agents) down in the space between the main cycler and the outer steel plating. Apparently babies preferred their meat smoked. He came to with his head stuffed at an awkward angle under Yama's arm, his chin bearing the brunt of his weight since most of his body was wedged above his damn chin and against Yama....and cow. Well then. He was kind of grateful he hadn't broken his damn neck in the drop?

The birds were sitting at the top of the smoke pipe. They were blocking smoke release.

And CO2 release.

And that was probably why he giggled helplessly once he managed to wiggle off his damn chin. "Shiiiiiit....this can kill us!" Carbon Monoxide poisoning was not a dignified way to go really.

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The bit of fresh air and mission mindset were finally starting to win out against the woozy, floaty feeling from earlier, so he just nodded, tugging harder on the cow leg before using it to drag himself up until he could brace himself with his legs. "If anything down there starts to slide, you yell and I'll stop, okay?"

He didn't usually feel the need to tell Gokudera something so basic, but as near as they'd both been to just not waking up, maybe a few basic reminders weren't a bad thing.

"Fuck, if something slides and I die? Don't tag the fuckers, I want them cooked and served to Operations with a nice dose of guilt," he snorted, less woozy and more nauseas now. Awesome.

Right, Yama moving gave him a bit of room to wiggle around and hopefully get himself upright.

Where 'room' meant 'about a trunk's worth of space to fold around in'. Eh, he'd make it work.

"You're not dying." It was less a reassurance and more a threat, honestly. He wasn't sure what his powers would do to a ghost, but he knew enough psychics and things that he'd willingly find out. "But request noted."

It was a lot harder climbing livestock one-handed than he'd have guessed, but sword work really did strengthen your upper body. He'd just never thought he'd have this reason to appreciate that. He managed to get himself settled on top of the first cow, dislodging a small... well, animalanche... of vermin and birds as he did. "Incoming."

"I have the fucked up feeling I used up all my luck for this mission by NOT breaking my fucking neck," Dera admitted. He was busy tucking his knees to his chin and carefully getting himself upright when the damn animals fell.

How the hell had something so damn big scooped up so many damn tiny things? It had to have been a whole squirrel nest that tried to go in his mouth. "ACK!" It was going to be a moment or two before he could start hauling himself up to Yama's perch. Yep.

"Why couldn't we have been sent after some nice, safe hydras or something?"

"Did we piss off a leprechaun or something?" He was starting to wonder about the small stuff himself, honestly. Maybe they'd just picked up a whole tree and shook it till stuff fell out or something.

He was already looking for the next stopping point. Something was dripping, and it took him a second to realize it was probably blood from the next cow up. Great. "Hydras have so many steps, though. Following a list takes all the fun out of everything. Think we can claim a vat of bleach as a travel expense?"

"We haven't run a mission in Ireland since April!" So probably not? The buggers could carry a grudge though, there was always that possibility!

"...We're going to be matching red heads aren't we?" he sighed, feeling the start of dripping once Yama moved again. Ugh. UGH. "Lets fucking do that. I like bleach. And a nice dinner. And a fucking new set of clothes because I've only got lounging shit stored for both of us." Their last several sets of work clothes were still in decon and hadn't been able to get stuffed back in one of his holes!

"They're tiny. Maybe it took this long to catch up." Oh, and that sounded way too funny. He decided to keep moving rather than deal with the lightheaded giggles again.

"Naw, your hair'll dye way better than mine cause it's lighter. Dinner and new clothes sound really good, though." And his voice was probably getting a bit muffled as he tried to wedge himself around the second cow and ignore the blood as best he could. "You steady down there? Don't think there's anything more to knock down, but just in case."

"Tiny just means they can fucking sneak into luggage compartments easier," so they should have made it to them sooner rather than later! If leprechauns worked that way at all that was. There were debates about exactly where they ranked in Fae courts and ability!

"I'm fine. Achy as shit and I can fucking taste the blood, but fine. Just don't drop a whole cow on me. Need the knife for more vent holes up there?"

It was all a moot point now, anyway. They were stuck, whatever luck got them here, so they just had to deal with it.

He paused just long enough to consider the question. "Probably? It'd be a good idea, but I don't trust the cows to have time for it. Guess we should just move faster, huh?"

"No," he gritted. "Pull your damn knife, oxygen is pretty damn heavy, higher we climb sooner we're out of air." If they didn't add more vents anyway!

"And I'll cuss the fucking cows out too if they get bitchy."

Was he supposed to not laugh at that? Cause it was really funny. But he'd be good and do as he was told, too. He could reach his boot knife and laugh at Gokudera all at the same time. "That's funny. Bitchy zombie cows!"

"TOTALLY VALID OPTIONS HERE OKAY? Remember that thing in Mexico?" And the Thunderbirds had migrated from Mexico, they could have been contaminated by the lord of the undead thing!

"And, well, you know. Cows." They were fucking messed up all on their own.

...Okay, so he'd sort of deliberately forgotten about the thing in Mexico. Who WANTED to remember that?

Gokudera, apparently.

"You're just still mad at Lambo."

Hey, it was worth remembering when you could RUN INTO IT AGAIN SOME TIME. He only wanted to deal with 'oh God this exists?!' mental snap once okay? It was mentally protective memory!

"No I'm not. I signed him up for the Antarctic mission." See? Totally not mad any more, revenge was had, etc. "I'm not hearing you punching holes up there you moron. Do you WANT to fall back into hallucinating with the beef here?"

How often did they ever run into the same horrific thing twice, though? Plenty of new horrific things out there to get terrible surprises from. Like giant carnivorous birds.

"I wasn't the one pretending the dead cows had personalities." But he'd roll his eyes and be good. His poor knife would never forgive him for this.

Often enough that it was worth being prepared for! Seriously! And the truly terrible things SHOULD only be encountered once but best to be paranoid!

"Yeah, but you know I fucking anthropomorphize shit all the time, that's closer to normal!" SERIOUSLY! Ah, good, that was the sound he wanted to hear. "Thank you."

"I'm just saying I wasn't hallucinating with any beef to begin with." For some reason, he was a little stuck on that point, but who could blame him? He was (sometimes) the sane one in this pair.

He just huffed good-naturedly when Gokudera actually thanked him for not getting dead. "Maybe you need to be opening up some holes, too, huh? But welcome."

"Sue me, you're fucking important," he grumbled and started punching some more holes for himself yes. Because well, he really hadn't thought about it himself okay? "Tempted to try to reach through shit see if opening a hole gets us more air in here..." but Yama would need to be a bit higher for that?

He would need to be, yes, and he was already starting to move on, but Gokudera could probably hear the frown in his voice. "Is that a great idea in a space this small?" What if this was one of the few times something else decided to follow Gokudera in?

"I don't know," he admitted honestly, "but I also have your spare sword in a pocket and a monster can damn well eat dead cow if it pops through my rift."

Well, he'd needed the laugh, if nothing else. "Aw, and here I thought you were making friends."

"Nah, you'd get fucking jealous." JUST SAYING.

"Hey, I don't get jealous of you having friends!" Not that Gokudera had a lot of other friends to make him test that statement. "Haha, at least not imaginary dead cow friends."

His head felt clearer, so he left his newest air hole behind, moving even farther up, and... hey, if he squirmed over this cow's head, he was almost positive he could see light filtering through whatever they'd make their nest out of.

"Nah, these fuckers would get boring in under a day so it's just not worth the emotional investment and shit," he snorted. Ah, he was starting to get that prickle along the back of his neck that meant Yama and his dampening field were inching out of range! Awesome. "Need your spare sword? I can't fucking see up to you to see if you lost yours."

"Nah, I've still got it. Strap's pretty sturdy, huh?" He chuckled, but the tech guys had had it made out of basilisk or something insane like that, so it should be. They'd been awfully excited at the time, so he'd just let them talk, but he hadn't paid that much attention. "If you need me back down there, yell, okay?"

Funny, how once upon a time he and Gokudera had managed to do all this existing and stuff by themselves. Not that they'd really been all that good at it alone, but they'd managed. The chuckling turned to snickering, and it was time to open up a new air hole.

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